Some films announce themselves. To God's Ear takes its time, and that is the whole idea. Shot on location on the North Fork, the independent drama from Long Island director and writer Stan Schofield is a story about grief, trust and the slow, patient work of healing, told largely through the friendship between two teenage girls and a horse. It screens on Saturday, October 24 at 7 p.m. at the Avram Theater at Stony Brook Southampton, with Schofield on hand for a Q&A afterward.

Two teenage girls walking a chestnut horse across a green paddock in To God's Ear

Two girls, two families and a horse

At the center of the film are two teenagers who have each been through more than any kid should. They do not start out as friends. What brings them together is a horse, and what the horse asks of them, steadiness, patience, the willingness to let your guard down, turns out to be exactly what they need from each other. Around them, two families are carrying their own losses, and the film follows all of them as they look for a way forward.

It is also a film with something real to say about equine therapy, the practice of using time with horses to help people work through trauma. Anyone who has spent time around horses knows the feeling the film is reaching for: an animal that big cannot be rushed or fooled, and earning its trust has a way of quieting everything else.

Two girls running alongside a horse through an open field on the North Fork

The North Fork as a character

Local audiences have a particular reason to see this one. The film was made here, among the farm roads, fence lines and open fields of the North Fork, and it looks it. The pacing is deliberate and unhurried, closer to the rhythm of a working farm than a Hollywood plot, and the landscape does a lot of the storytelling. If you love the East End in the quiet weeks after the summer crowds leave, this is a film that knows exactly what that feels like.

The cast includes Eva Petersson as Cass, Julia Weissman as Lutty, J Parker Wood as Samuel, Ian T Cramer as Luke and Elizabeth Vermilyea as Jessica. The film is a production of Ellington Road Pictures and runs about 90 minutes.

A father holding his son's face in an emotional scene in a barn from To God's Ear

A Long Island filmmaker with a track record

Schofield is no newcomer. His earlier feature Cost of Living won the AFI Best First Feature Award, and Parting Words took Best Picture and Best Director at the Long Island Film Festival. A screening with the director in the room is the best way to see a film like this, and the Q&A after the credits is a chance to hear how a small, personal story got made on the North Fork.

If you go

What: To God's Ear, screening followed by a Q&A with director and writer Stan Schofield
When: Saturday, October 24, 2026, at 7 p.m.
Where: The Avram Theater, Stony Brook Southampton, 39 Tuckahoe Road, Southampton
Tickets: southampton.showare.com/ToGodsEar, or call the box office at (631) 632-5166

The venue asks that tickets be bought directly through its own site or box office. Learn more about the film at togodsearfilm.com, and find more things to do this month on the Long Island Wave calendar.